The blow-up rate for a non-scaling invariant semilinear heat equation

Abstract: We consider the semilinear heat equation $$\partial_t u -\Delta u =f(u), \quad (x,t)\in \mathbb{R}^N\times [0,T),\qquad (1)$$ with $f(u)=|u|^{p-1}u\log^a (2+u^2)$, where $p>1$ is Sobolev subcritical and $a\in \mathbb{R}$. We first show an upper bound for any blow-up solution of (1). Then, using this estimate and the logarithmic property, we prove that the exact blow-up rate of any singular solution of (1) is given by the ODE solution associated with (1), namely $u' =|u|^{p-1}u\log^a (2+u^2)$. In other terms, all blow-up solutions in the Sobolev subcritical range are Type I solutions. Up to our knowledge, this is the first determination of the blow-up rate for a semilinear heat equation where the main nonlinear term is not homogeneous.